CHAPTER 24

          For a second, his dark eyes focused on the blank space in front of him, trying to remember his life before Michaela, before this whole baby situation, before the unhappiness of the last years. 

          He was trying to remember Antonia… not because he was so attached to her memory, but because nothing about it had been worth the pain he’d endured. Maxim had lost Antonia several times over. In the end, an impenetrable wall had gone up between them, and he hadn’t been able to reach her anymore. He hadn’t been able to protect her, from her grief, from death.

          At this point, all Maxim knew was that he had no desire to ever go through that kind of hell again.

“So, you’re absolutely sure you’re going to meet someone else?” Michaela asked, her copper eyes deadly serious.

“I’m marrying you, Michaela… You’re the only